Getting even/revenge

[Thorn Jackson]

Anyone else hold grudges against competitors?

I generally don't keep tabs on my competitors at all, but Hans Foelster almost ruined me. It is completely my fault, but I still hold a grudge : )

It all started when I decided to finally try one of those tavern "competitor" missions. From what the guy told me, Foelester had been harassing him and that it would help the situation greatly if I sunk one of his ships.

And so I did.

Unfortunately because of my auctioning off tons of ships to competitors (even to Foelster himself, the ship I sunk was named by me) I believe I was spotted and charged 7 million + for my troubles. Not going to let it go, I found an opportunity to get back at him again by trying another mission I hadn't before- a burglary mission. Much to my delight, Hans Foelster was one of the business owners in Luebeck that I could choose to rob.

Of course it fails and I'm on the hook for ANOTHER 7 million+, almost destroying me once again. Eventually my trading empire collapsed as a result of oversupply and inefficient management on my part, but the hatred still runs deep : )

In my current game, Herman? Polak, Hakon Nielson and Albrecht Hogerson have all been caught attempting to burglarize me and I have their names written on my wall so I will never forget their dastardly acts. I have yet to take action and realize that I should probably save before doing so if I don't want to take it in the shorts again.

Does burglarizing and shooting down ships really harm your competitors at all? Either way they are going down, particularly Hogerson because he tried that crap twice.

Do you guys shelve your vengeance or do you dish it out like there is no tomorrow?

[Draconyx]

What I do if annoyed by them, is actually very sneaky but requires some effort. I copy the save file from single to multiplayer so I know where the competitors ships are going and then I steal/sink them. or if I am feeling lucky I use the hotseat setup to transfer all their gold and ships to my character and save then reload it in single player basically bankrupting them instantly.

[AlP]

The burglar usually fails, it's not something you can rely on.

Originally posted by crimbertjones:

Does burglarizing and shooting down ships really harm your competitors at all?

From an old post by DukeLeto on the old Ascaron forums:

First there are three kinds of AI's as far as I can discern.

1) The "Competitor" AIs who are listed in the statistics and compete with you in the game rankings.

2) The "Normal" AIs who own ships and trade but are not listed in the statistics or scoring ranks.

3) The "Buyer" AIs. There is one "Buyer" in each town with a Guildhall. Their function is to ensure that every ship put up for sale has at least one buyer.

Question 1:

You can lessen their company values ad infinitum. You just need to force them to lose money on their trades and production and steal their ships. Easy. Apparently, "Normal" AIs do go bankrupt and disappear from the game. Since they aren't formally listed anywhere, this is hard to verify.

"Competitors" have infinite credit, but no Purchasing Power. They can lose money overall forever, but if they have negative cash, they can't buy goods. You need to cause a business to be unprofitable by underselling its output to force them to put it up for sale, or cut off its Raw Materials supply.

"Buyers" also have infinite credit, but can only buy ships or businesses, never build them.

Be aware that this is from 2003, when not all such information was correct. There were lots of myths back then.

[noch_dm]

Originally posted by crimbertjones:

Anyone else hold grudges against competitors?

I generally don't keep tabs on my competitors at all, but Hans Foelster almost ruined me. It is completely my fault, but I still hold a grudge : )

It all started when I decided to finally try one of those tavern "competitor" missions. From what the guy told me, Foelester had been harassing him and that it would help the situation greatly if I sunk one of his ships.

And so I did.

Unfortunately because of my auctioning off tons of ships to competitors (even to Foelster himself, the ship I sunk was named by me) I believe I was spotted and charged 7 million + for my troubles. Not going to let it go, I found an opportunity to get back at him again by trying another mission I hadn't before- a burglary mission. Much to my delight, Hans Foelster was one of the business owners in Luebeck that I could choose to rob.

Of course it fails and I'm on the hook for ANOTHER 7 million+, almost destroying me once again. Eventually my trading empire collapsed as a result of oversupply and inefficient management on my part, but the hatred still runs deep : )

In my current game, Herman? ♥♥♥♥♥, Hakon Nielson and Albrecht Hogerson have all been caught attempting to burglarize me and I have their names written on my wall so I will never forget their dastardly acts. I have yet to take action and realize that I should probably save before doing so if I don't want to take it in the shorts again.

Does burglarizing and shooting down ships really harm your competitors at all? Either way they are going down, particularly Hogerson because he tried that crap twice.

Do you guys shelve your vengeance or do you dish it out like there is no tomorrow?

Here is one simple tip if you cant be bothered with the save and reload for getting caught or just pirate so much that it becomes difficult to tell who it is you were hitting when you got the Indictment... Bribe the judjes... at the bathhouse I give them 50k at a time and i get the message of *this is a very inticing sum you can be certian of my loyalty* If your gameplayis so advanced that the fines are so many millions high it might cost you a little more than 50k but at that point it is certainly MUCH more affordable than the fines!

Ahh the traders and Pirates of my game all want vengance on ME ehhehe! I am the type of person whop built my Patrician career on pirating; it took me ages to see the amazing power and value of trade :)

The way i learnt how to play the game was to set a pirate outside my hometown and plunder only the incoming, then I managed to drive prices up so high for goods shortages because the other traders found it less profitable to trade with my town so they went there much less often that it became profitable to capture some trade ships and start bringing in some of the goods that i couldn't steal fast enough; THEN when i discovered how profitable that is I started taylor building the buisnesses that were producing the goods that my town just never seemed to have enough of because of my piracy and became Mayor and began my Career to Aldermann!! It was only then that i realised that it was just as important to trade with other towns and also profitable especiallly with building buisnesses in the hometown to increase the demands off goods ect... I definitley find it is good to have a blanance between trade an piracy!

To answer the original question, becuase of my tactics I'm the one all the NPCs have a revenge grudge against... I dont even take notice when they try ♥♥♥♥ except to the extent of noteing that the game conspires to sell the goods you want to sell to a town before you can. But it takes the enitire ocean of competitors and generally the game cheating to accomplish this